A Lack of Vision

Looking at baseball cards issued for the 1965 season, I noticed a lot of players wore glasses and while most of the spectacled looked like accountants from a large 1950s firm, at least they could see.

My baseball career was cut short because I wouldn’t wear my glasses at an early age for fear of ridicule. I didn’t realize then that my lack of corrected vision was actually more grounds for poking fun at me than the way I looked had I been wearing the glasses. If I had paid attention to those baseball stars who wore them, I’d probably not have shunned them and done better on the diamond.

There were some good four-eyed players who are in my 1965 APBA replay now. Perhaps the best was Dick Allen, the slugging third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. Denny McLain, the Detroit Tigers pitcher who, three years later won 30 games, had glasses.  Frank Howard, another home run fiend, sported glasses while playing with the Washington Senators. Two Sens’ pitchers that year, Howie Koplitz and Frank Kreutzer, also wore them. Two of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bill Virdon and Bob Veale, also had corrective lenses. And the Twins saw 1965 American League MVP Zolio Versalles wear them, along with third baseman Rich Rollins.

I knew my vision was bad while in first grade at my northern Minnesota elementary school. The school was on the campus of a college where my father taught; it was called the “lab school” and college students often used us grade schoolers in various tests involving education and then some. (I remember once a bizarre class tested us to see if anyone had Extra Sensory Perception. They held up cards and we had to “feel” what symbol was on each card.)

Once, in the early fall of my first grade year, college students lined us up for eye exams. The testers held a large wooden block with the letter “E” on it. They would turn it and we were to tell them which way the “E” was pointing. I knew I was in trouble when I squinted and said “What block?”

I got glasses soon after, but I was embarrassed to wear them. I was pretty much a nerd anyway. Glasses just made it worse, I thought. Looking back now and realizing just how bad my vision was then, it’s a wonder I could play the waffle ball games and shoot baskets with my friend, let alone finding my way back home later.  I did okay, but still, there were the embarrassing moments when I should have just put the glasses on. Once, while at the lake home of a girl I liked from Grand Rapids, Minn., I thought I saw a ball on the floor. I picked it up with the intent of tossing it to her. Rather than a ball, though, I discovered upon closer inspection that it was a chunk of red meat they had given to their dog. It was coated in dog drool and when I quickly dropped it in shock, the girl and her parents laughed at me. They went back to Grand Rapids at the end of that summer and I never saw her again – both figuratively in a relationship sense and in reality in a really poor vision sense.

I tried out for Little League baseball without the glasses when I was 10 or so. During batting practice, the coach lobbed easy pitches to check our swings. When it was my turn, I hefted the bat, swinging it like a seasoned pro. I stepped up, dug in and waited for the pitch.

"Son, you’re facing the wrong way,” the coach said. I turned around to face the pitcher’s mound and began flailing at pitches I thought were near me.

“He swings at all the bad pitches and lets the good ones go by,” another kid said of me. Others made fun of me, criticizing my swing and general appearance. I wanted to tell them that only my vision was affected. My hearing was perfect.

I played in one Little League game before my lack of vision got the best of me. I was stationed in the outfield where the coach presumed no one would hit a ball. Unfortunately, some kid laid into one and sent the ball my way. I looked skyward, hoping to see the ball. I couldn’t spot it and when it made the sickening landing “thud” some 10 feet behind me, I knew I was doomed. The coach screamed at me and took me off the field. I ducked my head in embarrassment and then snuck off the field and went home. Despite the others having good vision, no one seemed to notice me leave.

I wear contact lenses now; I got rid of the glasses in 1976 while in high school. But I’m sure I still can’t hit a baseball. Learning to swing blindly during my formative years didn’t help.

When I roll games in my 1965 APBA replay now, I think of those players who wore glasses and probably had the last laugh at any of the kids who may have made fun of them. Frank Howard must be seeing the ball very well; he has 17 home runs in 45 games in my replay and is on pace for 61 home runs. Rollins, while not known for his slugging, hit one out for the Twins the other day in my replay to keep Minnesota in first place in the American League.

So, the lesson here is: wear your glasses. Don’t worry about how you look. Even if you don’t end up playing baseball in the big leagues, wearing glasses will keep you from picking up dog drool-infested food.